Table of Contents

Pretrial Release of Latino Defendants in the United States, 1990-2004 (ICPSR 25521)

Principal Investigator(s):Levin, David, Pretrial Justice Institute

Summary:

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of Latino ethnicity on pretrial release decisions in large urban counties. The study examined two questions:
Are Latino defendants less likely to receive pretrial releases than non-Latino defendants?
Are Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is rapidly increasing less likely to receive pretrial releases than Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is not rapidly increasing?
The study utilized the State Court... (more info)

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of Latino ethnicity on pretrial release decisions in large urban counties. The study examined two questions:

Are Latino defendants less likely to receive pretrial releases than non-Latino defendants?

Are Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is rapidly increasing less likely to receive pretrial releases than Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is not rapidly increasing?

The study utilized the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) Database (see STATE COURT PROCESSING STATISTICS, 1990-2004: FELONY DEFENDANTS IN LARGE URBAN COUNTIES [ICPSR 2038]). The SCPS collects data on felony cases filed in state courts in 40 of the nation's 75 largest counties over selected sample dates in the month of May of every even numbered year, and tracks a representative sample of felony case defendants from arrest through sentencing. Data in the collection include 118,556 cases.

Researchers supplemented the SCPS with county-level information from several sources:

The data include defendant level variables such as most serious current offense charge, number of charges, prior felony convictions, prior misdemeanor convictions, prior incarcerations, criminal justice status at arrest, prior failure to appear, age, gender, ethnicity, and race. County level variables include region, crime rate, two year change in crime rate, caseload rate, jail capacity, two year change in jail capacity, judicial selection by election or appointment, prosecutor screens cases, and annual expenditure on prosecutor's office. Racial threat stimuli variables include natural log of the percentage of the county population that is Latino, natural log of the percentage of the county population that is African American, change in the percentage of the county population that is Latino over the last six years and change in the percentage of the county population that is African American over the last six years. Cross-level interaction variables include percentage minority (Latino/African American) population zero percent to 15 percent, percentage minority (Latino/African American) population 16 percent to 30 percent, and percentage minority (Latino/African American) population 31 percent or higher.

Access Notes

These data are freely available.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: This study is over 150MB in size and may take several minutes to download on a typical internet connection.

Study Description

Citation

Levin, David. Pretrial Release of Latino Defendants in the United States, 1990-2004. ICPSR25521-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-07-30. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR25521.v1

Universe:
All defendants included in the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) database between 1990 and 2004.

Data Types:
administrative records data

Methodology

Study Purpose:

The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of Latino ethnicity on pretrial release decisions in large urban counties. The study examined two questions:

Are Latino defendants less likely to receive pretrial releases than non-Latino defendants?

Are Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is rapidly increasing less likely to receive pretrial releases than Latino defendants in counties where the Latino population is not rapidly increasing?

Study Design:

To assess the impact of Latino ethnicity on pretrial release decisions in large urban counties the study utilized the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) Database (see STATE COURT PROCESSING STATISTICS, 1990-2004: FELONY DEFENDANTS IN LARGE URBAN COUNTIES [ICPSR 2038]). The SCPS collects data on felony cases filed in state courts in 40 of the nation's 75 largest counties over selected sample dates in the month of May of every even numbered year and tracks a representative sample of felony case defendants from arrest through sentencing. Data in the collection include 118,556 cases.

Researchers supplemented the SCPS with county-level information from several sources:

Sample:
The State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) Database used a two stage sampling process. The first stage was a stratified sample to select 40 of the 75 most populous counties, and the second stage was a systematic sample of defendants based on felony filings within each selected county. Users should refer to the SCPS codebook for more information.

Weight:
The State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) data are weighted to represent felony cases in the nation's 75 largest counties by population. The weight variables included in the data are CASEWT (case weight to full month), COUNTYWT (county weight to stratum), and TOTALWT (total weight).

Mode of Data Collection:
record abstracts

Data Source:

See list in Study Design above.

Description of Variables:
The data include defendant level variables such as most serious current offense charge, number of charges, prior felony convictions, prior misdemeanor convictions, prior incarcerations, criminal justice status at arrest, prior failure to appear, age, gender, ethnicity, and race. County level variables include region, crime rate, two year change in crime rate, caseload rate, jail capacity, two year change in jail capacity, judicial selection by election or appointment, prosecutor screens cases, and annual expenditure on prosecutor's office. Racial threat stimuli variables include natural log of the percentage of the county population that is Latino, natural log of the percentage of the county population that is African American, change in the percentage of the county population that is Latino over the last six years and change in the percentage of the county population that is African American over the last six years. Cross-level interaction variables include percentage minority (Latino/African American) population zero percent to 15 percent, percentage minority (Latino/African American) population 16 percent to 30 percent, and percentage minority (Latino/African American) population 31 percent or higher.

Response Rates:
Users should review to the State Court Processing Statistics (SCPS) codebook for response rates for each SCPS data collection.

Presence of Common Scales:
none

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: